I gave up after 4:45 of all moans and no playing. The sentiment is one thing, but it's difficult to comment without hearing what they guy has actually had you playing.

Do always find out what musical qualifications a potential tutor has; many of us are good at what we do (I have a Graduate degree with a music specialism, and a Distinction at Grade 8 Classical Guitar; Tom owns a music school; David has been teaching since time began - and that's just three of us from here) but there are plenty of people out there with no idea who just use "teaching" guitar as a way of parting other people from their hard-earned.

"Be good at what you can do" - Fingerbanger
"I have always felt that it is better to do what is beautiful than what is 'right'" - Eliot Fisk

Alan Green wrote:I gave up after 4:45 of all moans and no playing. The sentiment is one thing, but it's difficult to comment without hearing what they guy has actually had you playing.

Do always find out what musical qualifications a potential tutor has; many of us are good at what we do (I have a Graduate degree with a music specialism, and a Distinction at Grade 8 Classical Guitar; Tom owns a music school; David has been teaching since time began - and that's just three of us from here) but there are plenty of people out there with no idea who just use "teaching" guitar as a way of parting other people from their hard-earned.

This was not meant to be a lesson about technique this was meant to "open your eyes" about stupid people. I actually think that a qualification means absolutely nothing: take Satriani for example. I don't think he has a oh-so-awesome qualification and yet I think he is a fantastic teacher.

Satriani is a great technical guitarist, and he communicates his ideas clearly. But I'd disagree that he's a great teacher, because some of what he conveys will only confuse others studying music.

Satriani shares the problem common to most "self-taught" musicians: they don't know what they don't know. When Satriani came up with a composition technique, he had no idea that it already existed, so he gave it a brand new name. Worse yet, he didn't know that the brand new name he came up with already existed, and applied to a different composition technique.

What Satriani decided to call "pitch axis" already had a name: parallel scales. And "pitch axis" as a composition tool was invented by composer Bela Bartok (who didn't name it - that was done by music theorist Erno Lendvai, who analyzed the works of Bartok and categorized his techniques).

So Satriani just reinvented a wheel. And having two different names for a technique isn't a good thing, because it gets in the way of clearly understanding what you're studying.

True, but, its the spokes he put in between the ones there that made him great. The hard work and dedication, down to the finest detail. I think the music theory wheel is flat, cause Satriani seems to be the only one rolling (in cash).

Although I had a hard time understanding you in youtube post, I get the general idea. But I don't agree with you on the fact that your teacher is an a hole. He probably doesn't know how to deliver his technique to you. Probably a self taught musician. I don't like those people being my teacher either. That I agree. Because I'm into music theory. If somebody tells me "This, you need to memorize because it sounds good" or "because it works this way", I would fire him in a heartbeat. I was born and raised in Korea for 30 years before I came to US and I know all in's and out's of Korean education and the Korean education method has the exact same problem. Teachers just make students memorize lots of things w/o enough explanation as the competition to enter higher education is fierce. As some of you may know (or say), lots of people say Koreans are smart. Well, that may be true but may be wrong. We are good at exams because we're so used to memorizing and we are diligent people but that doesn't mean Koreans are smarter than the rest. Usually lots of Korean kids struggle quite a bit when they come to US because while they are good at mathmatics and science, they can't do creative stuffs because of the way of Korean education.
Same can be applied in guitar. If you don't fully understand the foundation of music, the ceiling will be limited eventually. Hence, you can't really teach well either. Well at least that's my opinion although I know some of you just have awesome musical talent with which you can listen to a song and do whatever you want w/o having much music knowledge.